Harlequin
by Koko-chan1
Summary: The Demon Lord Yashi has designs on the Ningenkai, and sends a very special agent to deal with the Reikai Tantei. Slight Kurama/Hiei, lots and lots and lots of crack, along with the writers cringing at their old work. Co-written with the Blue Spanch. Rated for a small amount of swearing.


**A/N: This is old. Seriously old. Old as in Oh-My-God-Is-That-Yes-It-Is-A-Dinosaur-Running-In-The-Background OLD. This was written by me and my sister the Blue Spanch back when we were both in high school, in the early wild days of anime, where the only parts of Yu Yu Hakusho available were the movie (which I first found at a Blockbuster) and the first sixteen episodes on fansub. ON VHS! The only dvd application was a horrible bootleg copy of the series where the subtitles had been translated from Japanese by an expatriate Korean rice husker living in China who only spoke Swahili. Or at least that's my best guess. As it stands, this is one of our very earliest works, and the first in the Harlequin series. I give VERY big warnings for this story. There's almost no idea of the canon timeline, everyone is at least a little OOC, and there is major crack. Oh, and Kurama/Hiei pairings, but no one is shocked by that anymore. But even though it is so ancient as to be found only on the crumbling slabs of papyrus in a horrible dank cave covered in strange and terrifying sigils that glow in the dark (Yeah, yeah, fine, I'll clean my place one of these days...), we still hope that those that read this will still enjoy it just as much as we enjoyed writing it. I'll try to put up the other stories about once a week or so, barring evil Real Life issues.**

Harlequin

by The Blue Spanch and Koko-chan

The Lord of Demons sat on the throne that he'd built from the bones of his predecessor, staring at the ball of captive lightning that hung before him in the murky air of the Great Hall, thinking of conquest. With a word and a gesture, he commanded it to show him the worlds that hovered here together in the vastness of space as if for comfort against the terrible emptiness, linked forever together.

 _Linked, that is the word._ He thought moodily. _Only one world out of the whole lot is truly real. Each Lord would like to say that his is the real one, but even the dead Netherworld king would have to admit that it isn't so._ He shifted to rest his chin on one fist, the rustle of his robes sending faint echoes in the dead-silent Hall.

 _The Ningenkai world is our anchor, our lodestone. It is also,_ he thought with some ironic amusement, _masterless. Perhaps I can correct that oversight, if I can get past the security system._

Responding to its master's thoughts, the globe of crackling light showed the images of those he had thought of. A ningen that had died before his time and had been brought back, a silver kitsune, a Forbidden Child who bore a black dragon, a ningen with no other claim to fame than an unusual amount of spiritual energy and the build and brains of a water buffalo. There was also an oar-riding spirit-world girl, and a couple of temple priestesses, but they were generally peripheral players. An unlikely group, but one that had steadily beaten off every single supernatural attack that had been thrown at them for years. Not even the Netherworld king had been able to survive his grasp for power.

 _This requires caution. I must think._

The Lord of Demons was an oddity among his kind. He was cautious, patient, and sneaky, traits that had been of great assistance to his ascending the throne. The previous Lord had bulled his way to the throne by sheer brute force, and then had foolishly challenged the great Lord Enma of the Spirit World. Enma had prevailed, of course, sending his adversary's charred husk back to the Demon world in a paper bag. The inevitable scramble for power had begun shortly after this event. Yashi had merely stood by and let the others kill themselves off before calmly assassinating the winner and taking the throne for himself. He was quite evil and had no problem with shooting an opponent in the back, after all. He hadn't stopped there. He studied. He visited the shattered Netherworld in the far reaches of space, he spied on the other worlds. He would not be caught short just because he didn't know how another world worked.

But these guardian ningens, now. They had stood off assault after assault with hardly a hitch. How was he to get around them...

 _Yes! That's it! They have stood off those assaults because they were assaults! Everything that has attacked them has been single-minded, destructive. What would they do about something that wasn't? Something fey and whimsical?_

Now this was an interesting line of thought. Lord Yashi had several creatures among his troops that would fit the bill, but he rejected that notion. He had ruled with an iron fist for so long now that his demons were totally compliant, like animated marionettes. Boring. Boredom had been a problem for him for several decades now. He needed a challenge.

"Bring me the Harlequin." He commanded.

A group of demons that had lined the walls of the hall like grotesque statues came to life and scrambled out of the room. Lord Yashi felt some well-earned smugness as he waited, fingering the ring on the middle finger of his left hand. The Harlequin, easily distracted as he was, had been difficult to capture and harder to control. Lord Yashi generally kept him locked in a huge crystal when not trying to break his spirit. A clatter of claws on stone heralded the demon's return as they struggled under the immense weight of the rock. The Harlequin was visible inside, a tall man-shaped creature in red and black. Two long curved horns, striped red and black, curled around and down from his temples. A black cape decorated with the four card suits in scarlet draped his shoulders, concealing a tightly-muscled, athletic body beneath. High cheekbones and large eyes, now closed as of in sleep, dominated the black face, and a faint smile seemed to be a permanent feature. A heavy gold collar encircled his neck.

The demons set the stone down and backed away, bowing and scraping, from their master. With a gesture from Lord Yashi, A crack formed in the crystal, spreading until it resembled a tower of cobwebs, and then shattered. The Harlequin landed on one knee in the shards, shaking his head muzzily. "Harlequin." Lord Yashi said, calling his slave to attention.

Two luminous, pupilless yellow eyes stared into his as the Harlequin snapped his head up and bared sharp white teeth in fury. Then, with a soundless shriek of pure rage, he leaped high into the air, cape spreading out like wings behind him, a silvery sword in one hand. But before he could bring the bitter-sharp blade down on Lord Yashi's head, a force field knocked him sprawling to the floor.

"Now really, Harlequin," Yashi said gloatingly. "We really can't have that. Do calm down."

As he spoke, the collar around Harlequin's neck blazed with light and he screamed silently again, this time in pain. When the glow abated, Yashi spoke.

"I have a job for you, my bicolor servant. These people in the Ningenkai-" He caused the globe of ball lightning to show several images, "Yu Yu Hakusho, they call themselves- Find them. Confuse them. Do your best to kill them. I will be watching."

The Harlequin had gotten to his feet while his master had been talking, and now spat on the floor at Yashi's feet, and flickered away into the shadows between worlds before Yashi could do anything about it. Yashi fumed for a moment, and then calmed himself. The annoying little twerp would have quite enough trouble once he found the Spirit Detectives.

oooooo

Yuusuke ambled out of the theater, munching on some leftover popcorn. It was early in the evening, so he didn't have to hurry home just yet. "I think I'll stop at the Arcade for a while." He said thoughtfully. "They should have gotten that new game machine in today."

The shortest route to the Arcade was through a maze of gloomy alleys, but Yuusuke wasn't worried. After spending a few years fighting things with more teeth and tentacles and claws than your average mugger, a mere street gang would seem like shooting fish in a barrel. He wondered absently if he would have to pry Kuwabara off the new game before he got a chance to try it out. Halfway through the alleys, though, Yuusuke's instincts started screaming. Something was behind him somewhere, watching, waiting for the right moment. He turned around slowly, searching the shadows for any movement, ears straining for any sound. Seeing and hearing nothing, he continued on his way. There! He'd heard something, soft footsteps not quite in synchrony with his own. Someone was following him. Once again, he stopped and looked around. Nothing on the ground or the walls-! The roof! The ally he was in ran right behind a house that had ornamental Fu dogs perched on the corners, and the one on the near corner had been damaged somehow. It seemed to have been replaced, only that new statue bore little resemblance to its fellows. The hairs on the back of Yuusuke's neck stood straight up as the "statue" turned its horned head and treated him to a glowing topaz gaze.

"Who are you?" Yuusuke yelled. "What do you want here?"

The Harlequin did not answer. Instead, he leaped lightly off the roof to land in the alley right behind Yuusuke. Yuusuke sprang away just in time to dodge a fistful of what appeared to be... confetti? Yuusuke paused, confused. He had been assaulted before with all manner of things, but confetti was new to him. A steely rasp from his left made him look up. The Harlequin stood under the glow of a street lamp, holding a long, slim sword over one shoulder and watching Yuusuke with amused curiosity. _Crap,_ he thought, _this thing's taller than Kuwabara, and agile!_

"Just my luck," Yuusuke said aloud. "I go out for one evening alone and I get assaulted by a psychotic mime."

That did it. The faint smile on the Harlequin's face disappeared and he sprang forward suddenly, sword flashing in a dizzying pattern. Yuusuke ducked and dodged for all he was worth, only to get knocked sprawling by a backhanded blow to the face. He got up unsteadily, shaking his head to make the stars go away. When his sight cleared, his adversary was standing still, watching him impatiently with narrowed eyes. _What's he waiting for?_ thought Yuusuke.

The Harlequin hissed softly through his teeth and put away his sword. In one smooth movement, he then stood tiptoe on one foot while bringing his right hand up to point straight at Yuusuke. As the tip of his index finger began to glow, Yuusuke felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. It seemed that he wasn't the only one with a Rei Gun. A flicker of movement caught his eye just then, for the glowing finger was merely a diversion for the real attack. With a swift frisbee-throwing motion, Harlequin let fly a deck of razor-edged cards that pinned Yuusuke to the wall, followed by a ball of flame that would have burned Yuusuke to a crisp if he hadn't torn himself free just in time. Singed and leaking blood from dozens of small cuts that hurt like hell, Yuusuke glared at his adversary as it laughed silently and produced another fireball. Instead of hurling it, however, The Harlequin began tossing it from hand to hand, adding more and more until he was juggling a ring of flame. With a mischievous smile, he began throwing them at Yuusuke.

Yuusuke, however, had had enough of this and decided to return the favor. "Rei Gun!" he shouted and let fly with a searing beam of blue light that lit up the alley with an actinic flare, aiming straight for the center of the ring of fire.

For once, his unorthodox aiming didn't work. Instead of being overloaded by a new influx of raw power and exploding dramatically as he should have, the Harlequin caught the beam and held it in the center of the ring, still juggling. The ring flared higher, brighter, and miniature lightning crackled off the ring and the juggler, crawling over the walls. The Harlequin was delighted and showed it, grinning broadly, tossing the fires in ever more confusing patterns, totally distracted. Mesmerized by the blinding display, Yuusuke completely missed the smaller, brief flare of light at the Harlequin's throat. What he did see, however, was that the juggler's expression suddenly changed from delight to pain, and then to anger, eyes flashing red. The pattern shifted again, and Yuusuke found himself looking straight down the bore of Hell. The Harlequin was furious, fighting for control of his mind as his cursed master tried to force him to release the ring at Yuusuke. Harlequin wasn't having any of that. He liked this ningen kid with the fast moves and nifty Rei Gun. With a supreme effort, he yanked himself sideways as the force exploded away from him, slagging an abandoned tenement into a lumpy puddle. Breathing heavily, he flashed an apologetic look at Yuusuke, and left.

Yuusuke was officially boggled. Confetti, cards, and rings of fire for no reason from a _totally silent opponent_. He knew how monsters and demons worked, and that was not it. They usually had a reason, they never used confetti, and they always made a lot of noise. Your average Supervillan would happily spend half an hour running off his mouth before attempting to blow your shorts off, never mind that this one also caught and channeled a Rei Gun blast without breaking a sweat. Yuusuke decided that his mother could survive a little worry and headed off toward Genkai's temple.

It was full dark when he got there, but the windows were warmly lit by candle light. Sliding open the door, he saw Genkai, Hinageshi, and Yukina sipping tea. "There you are, Yuusuke," Genkai said. "I thought you had forgotten that we were meeting here tonight. I was just about to send Hinageshi out to find you." She paused a moment, getting a good look at him as he stepped into the light. "Yuusuke, what happened? You look like a train wreck."

"Genkai!" Yuusuke howled. "I'm hallucinating!"

"That must have been some hallucination," Yukina said, putting down her cup. "They generally don't leave you looking like a train wreck."

"This one did." Yuusuke sat down with a thump and accepted a cup of tea from Yukina. "It was a psychotic mime, only I shouldn't call it that 'cause it goes ballistic if you insult it. Where's the first-aid kit?"

Hinageshi giggled, but Genkai stared straight at Yuusuke. "Tell me what happened." She said, deadly serious.

Yuusuke flashed her a startled look, but proceeded to tell her the story of his fight. As he did, Genkai stood up and opened a hidden compartment in the wall and withdrew a large, yellowing scroll. "Is this the one that got you?" She asked, opening the scroll when he had finished.

Yuusuke nearly choked on his tea when he saw the illustration. Topaz eyes and faint smile, slender sword in one hand and a fireball in the other. "That's him!" He said, wiping his face with one sleeve. "Who is that?"

"He is the Harlequin, and you are lucky to be alive. Or maybe not. It's rather hard to tell with this one."

"Huh?" Was Yuusuke's brilliant answer.

"Exactly. You said that you had just seen a movie?"

"Yes. And I was finishing my popcorn on the way out."

"Hmm." Genkai studied the faded script for a moment, then scowled. "What movie was it?"

"A remake of "Ran". Why?"

"Nothing in here about him hating good movies. Or popcorn." Genkai muttered. "Yuusuke, I will warn you to be very careful for a while. The Harlequin is exceptionally powerful and unpleasantly arbitrary. He is easily distracted, but totally unpredictable, and needs no reasons for what he does. His appearance here could spell utter disaster, or merely a strange week. Keep an eye out for him and report his actions to me. This is important, boy! Don't forget!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Yuusuke said, saluting.

Genkai smiled at his irrepressible attitude and dug the first-aid kit out of its cabinet. "Here," she said. "Patch yourself up and go home. Your mother will be frantic. I will inform the others about this."

ooooo

Genkai was right, as Yuusuke found out about a half-hour later. His mother was frantic.

ooooo

The following evening, Kuwabara walked alone along the streets of the town, casing his turf and thinking. Genkai had sent him a letter earlier in the day that made no sense whatsoever. It seemed to make perfect sense to Yuusuke, who had scampered off after school just because some of the school's wrestling team had treed a stripey mime on top of the flagpole that afternoon. Kuwabara had nearly laughed himself sick, watching the jocks barking around the base of the flagpole like hounds around a treed raccoon. Come to think of it, though, Yuusuke had been jumpy all day. Maybe he owed the mime money or something. By now, Kuwabara had reached the western edge of his territory, an old basketball court that had been built by the local government in the hopes that the gangs would give up war for sport. Fat chance. You can't do ambushes in basketball. He leaned against one net to watch the last remnants of a spectacular sunset and took out Genkai's letter. It was hard enough for him to read her calligraphy as it was, and the failing light made it harder. Something about a harlequin, whatever the hell that was.

Soft running footsteps accompanied by the unmistakable sound of a basketball hitting the pavement made him look up. As he did, the sounds stopped abruptly. "What?" He muttered, looking around for the player that was not there.

Something went _foom_ and lit up the court right above his head, and Kuwabara dove for the sidelines as the Harlequin slam-dunked a fireball through the net, crisping it and leaving a perfect chrysanthemum scorched on the pavement. Kuwabara scrambled to his feet in a fighting crouch, ready to face any adversary. What he faced, however, was no simple, everyday crazed arsonist. It was the mime from earlier that day, only it wasn't funny anymore. Few times in his life it was that he had to look up to meet the gaze of any man, but as it approached him, smiling, his heart froze. This thing wasn't human. No man had glowing topaz eyes, or moved as though he were weightless. "Get back!" he barked, manifesting his Rei Sword.

The Harlequin grinned like a crescent moon and drew his own sword with a metallic-silken sound, loud in the evening stillness. Kuwabara returned the Harlequin's smile and attacked, knowing that steel blades shattered under the burning onslaught of the Rei Sword. He was surprised, therefore, when the Harlequin not only knocked his attack aside but launched a dizzying array of slashes that left Kuwabara defending desperately, driven back step after step. Finally, backed into a corner, he resolved to sell his life dearly to his foe, who hadn't stopped smiling since the fight started. Then, to his amazement, the Harlequin disappeared. Kuwabara stepped out into the court, looking around suspiciously. This fight reminded him of the sparring matches that he occasionally had with Hiei, who had a rotten habit of vanishing whenever he got bored or was losing. Someone dragged a finger up his backbone suddenly, causing him to yelp in surprise and whirl around. Nobody there. A pinch on the butt made him spin around again, only to face nothing. Then the unseen hands sprinkled something that prickled down the back of his neck. With a roar of rage, he turned a third time, and this time the Harlequin was there. Before Kuwabara could react appropriately, though, one black-and-red hand snaked out and honked his nose soundly. It sounded rather like a bike horn. The Harlequin sprang back half a court away as a fuming Kuwabara slashed furiously at him. Kuwabara didn't mind being offed honorably in a fight with such a fearsome opponent, but he absolutely refused to be made fun of by this one and let him get away with it. With a roar, he charged his foe, intent on slicing that mocking smile in half. The Harlequin spun once like an abbreviated ballet dancer and came down in a crouch, bringing his hands together with a resounding smack. As he did, his cape flared out and dozens of small, brightly colored fireworks whizzed out, whistling and crackling, and headed straight for Kuwabara like a horde of starving mosquitoes. Forced to deal with the swarm of firecrackers, Kuwabara did not see the Harlequin's collar flash. What he did see, as he crushed out the final whizzing mote, was a red-eyed whirlwind of gleaming steel coming right at him. Again he was driven into the corner, this time fast enough to make him hit his head on the wall. He faltered briefly as his sight doubled, and refocused just in time to see the point of Harlequin's bitter-sharp blade heading right for that spot between his eyes. Somehow, instead of shish-kebabbing Kuwabara's brain, the sword wound up buried in the brick wall just above his ear, opening a small, thin razor-cut on his temple. He heard the hiss of the Harlequin's breath and watched the redness fade from the yellow eyes. The Harlequin, no longer smiling, pulled his sword from the wall, gave Kuwabara a deeply apologetic look, and disappeared into the shadows.

Kuwabara remained flat against the wall, trying to get his heart started again. Something copper-salty dribbled into his mouth, his own blood. He staggered out of the corner, bruised, burnt and boggled, wiping the cut on his temple with one sleeve. His back still prickled from whatever it was that the Harlequin had poured down there. "Well," He said absently. "at least now I know why Yuusuke was so twitchy today."

Then he headed for Genkai's Temple at a dead run.

ooooo

"Genkai!" He wailed as he slid open the door. "I'm hallucinating!"

Genkai, Yukina, Hinageshi, and Yuusuke were there, and none of them looked particularly surprised to see him.

"You too?" Yuusuke asked, pouring him a cup of tea. "He must have gotten you pretty badly; you've got confetti leaking out of the back of your shirt."

Kuwabara chugged his tea in one gulp and held his cup out for more. "What was that thing?" He asked. "It looked like a clown from a really weird circus, but it fought like three ninjas at once."

"Didn't you read my message?" Genkai asked. "I know you got it, Kuwabara."

"So I can't read your handwriting." He said, sipping his second cup of tea. "Big deal. What's a harlequin, anyway?"

Yuusuke put his face in his hands and sighed. "C'mon, man," He said. Don't you ever look up words you don't know?"

"No."

"This is the Harlequin." Genkai said, displaying the scroll.

Hinageshi had to hit the floor to avoid the spray as Kuwabara lost control. Yukina got up to get a towel.

"It's a good picture, isn't it?" Yukina asked, mopping up the puddle.

"Yeah."

"What were you doing when he attacked you?" Genkai asked. "Don't leave out any details. This creature is capricious, and potentially hazardous. I'd like to know what he was doing here, and just what attracted him."

"I was in that old basketball court, watching the sun set and trying to read your letter."

Genkai scowled over the ancient scroll. "No, this says nothing about him disliking sunsets, messages, or sports arenas. Tell me about your fight."

Genkai listened attentively as he, rather embarrassed about some parts, told her the whole thing. "The same as what happened to Yuusuke." She mused. "A relentless barrage of fighting techniques that make Yuusuke's strangest ones look boring, followed by a narrowly averted deathblow. And a silent apology. Something is very wrong here."

"No kidding." Yuusuke and Kuwabara said in unison.

"What is it?" Asked Hinageshi.

"There should be no pattern at all to his attacks." Genkai replied. "He should also be making some sort of sound, laughter and the like. It may just be a coincidence that the two attacks are alike, but I doubt it, especially because he has been silent both times. The Harlequin is well known for being noisy."

"So what do we do?" Kuwabara asked.

"Keep an eye out for him. Whatever you do, don't try to fight again, or you may not survive the experience. Watch what he does, and then tell me about it. Yuusuke has the same instructions."

"Yes sir, ma'am sir!"

"Don't you start."

ooooo

Kurama knelt in his garden, mulching the roses and thinking. He knew he was forgetting something, but darned if he could remember what it was. The feeling nagged at him like a hangnail, and he crushed a Japanese beetle out of sheer frustration. _I'd better go in soon._ he thought. _The sun's almost gone._

He then got the creepy feeling that everybody fears; The feeling that someone is standing right behind you and _grinning_ , but that was silly. He felt no youki at all, not even an insect's... Wait a minute. Something had blanked out all the ki in the yard. Something went _swish_ behind him, and, out of pure instinct born of centuries of being attacked out of the night, he held up the dirt-crusted trowel in defense.

KCHING!

When he pulled the trowel back, half of it was missing. "Aw, man," he moaned. "Mom's gonna kill me."

He heard the unseen blade hiss toward him again, and he rolled away just in time to see his rosebush get an abrupt pruning. Seriously annoyed by this, he grabbed the nearest weapon at hand, the garden hose. Yuusuke wasn't the only one who could get by with strange tactics, so Kurama let his shadowy assailant have it right in the face with a jet of water. While it sputtered, he grabbed a rose from the stricken bush. "Rose Whip!" he hollered, and snapped the thorny vine at his enemy... Who was not there.

 _Where'd he go?!_ he thought.

Just then, somebody grabbed the back of his pants and pulled, simultaneously dropping a handful of something prickly down them. Kurama was then treated to the world's first confetti wedgie. "Yoww!"

Whirling around, he saw the Harlequin, still dripping and with sword drawn. Kurama cracked his whip at him, only to have it sliced cleanly in half. Kurama, however, had been studying Greek mythology in class lately, and the story of the Hydra came to mind. Within moments, his Rose Whip was a writhing mass of sharp-edged vines. With an expert flick of his wrist, he caught the Harlequin's sword arm and tore the blade out of its grasp, hurling it across the yard. The Harlequin blocked the next slash with a large card and snatched up a thick chain out of the grass. Kurama had used the chain earlier in the day for planting a cherry tree sapling. _Oh, crap! I should have put that thing back in the garage!_

The Harlequin wasted no time in demonstrating that he was no slouch with a whip, either. Chain and thorn met with staccato bursts of sound as the fighters strove to prevail, and the garden suffered as a result. Kurama was careful about the topiary, but the Harlequin had no such reservations. Every plant, tree, and shrub got an unplanned pruning, several bricks had been removed from the wall of the house, and somehow during the melee, fifty pounds of plaster wound up being dumped into his mother's window boxes. The hose was also used a great deal, and both of them were soaked by the time they had to stop to catch their breath.

The Harlequin was having a grand old time. He hadn't had a whip-battle with an agile youko for centuries, and he was enjoying every minute. He knew that he would eventually have to retrieve his sword and shave this kid or something, but that could wait just a little longer- OW! OW! OW! _Shit! Damn you, Yashi!_

Kurama had barely managed to get the water out of his eyes when he was forced to defend himself desperately against a terrifying series of slashes that he barely countered, getting his whip snarled irrevocably in the chain. The Harlequin spun around him, wrapping him tightly in the mass of thorn and steel and paused, staring into Kurama's eyes with his own blood-hued ones, and smiled unpleasantly. A small fireball appeared in his free hand, and he lit the end of the vine-tangled chain with it. The chain sputtered, sparked and started to burn exactly like the fuse of a very large firework. Kurama cried out in fear, for he knew all too well what would happen when that spark reached the main mass...

A flash of silver light shot across the yard, slicing the fuse just before disaster, and stuck with a "chunk" noise in the wall of the house. Kurama looked at the wall and saw the Harlequin's sword quivering in the brickwork, and then his bonds fell away in a cloud of rust. His knees didn't want to hold him up anymore, so he sat down in a hurry. Seeing a movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned and saw the Harlequin. Something was very wrong with the creature. Its eyes kept flashing red and yellow, and it swayed unsteadily on its feet, its face a rictus of agonized fury. It turned a topaz gaze on him, this time in apology, and dissolved into darkness.

Kurama got up once he could trust his legs again and pulled the sword out of the wall. A thin, deadly blade that looked as though it was made of fine silver, with the four card suits enamelled on the base of the sword blade in scarlet and pitch black. Almost absent-mindedly, he rigged a sort of sling for the sword from the remnants of his whip and slung it over his shoulder. He then noticed that a piece of paper had fallen out of his pocket during the fight, and he picked it up and smoothed it out as best as he could. No use, it was totally illegible. "Oh, wait," he said, a notion striking him. "Now I know what I was forgetting! Genkai sent me a letter."

His mind was bruised enough so that he stood there for a few minutes in a warm fog of pride for remembering this, and then a prickling sensation in his shorts reminded him that yes, there was a real world out there.

ooooo

Until a supercharged cheetah makes the trip, Kurama is the winner of the Fast Feets Award for getting to Genkai's temple in a screaming hurry.

ooooo

"Genkai!" He wheezed as he slid open the door of the temple. "I'm hallucinating!"

"You aren't the only one." Genkai replied, indicating the presence of Yuusuke and Kuwabara.

"Looks like you seriously annoyed the 'Quin." Yuusuke said, passing the damp youko a cup of strong tea. "You're wet, torn up, and leaking confetti out of your pant legs. How'd that happen?"

"Confetti wedgie." Kurama managed between gulps.

Kuwabara winced in sympathy. "What'd you do to deserve that?"

"I sprayed it in the face with the garden hose. Pour me another cup, please? Thank you. Genkai, just what was that thing? I've never met anything that was as good with a whip as I am."

"Let me guess." Genkai said, retrieving her scroll from its compartment. "You got my letter but never read it."

"I was doing my homework, and then I went out to weed and mulch the garden. I didn't even remember it until after the fight, and by then it was trashed."

"A valid excuse, I suppose. Is this the one that got you?"

Kurama yelped and spilled his tea when he saw the picture. "That's the one! Who or what is that guy, Genkai?"

"If you had read the letter I sent you, you would have known."

"Genkai, _please_!"

"All right. His name is the Harlequin. He has more than the accepted level of power, and he uses it in ways most whimsical, and often, unpleasant. As you have already noticed, he's more or less unbeatable alone, and his methods are not necessarily honorable. The Harlequin is random, arbitrary, and hopelessly silly. He doesn't have to make sense if he doesn't want to, so don't bother trying to figure him out. What he is, though, is unbelievably dangerous. Lately, though, there has been an actual pattern to his attacks, and this is very wrong. What were you doing when he attacked?"

"Like I said, Genkai, I was working in my garden. Mulching the roses, to be precise."

Genkai pored over the scroll for a minute. "Huh." She said. "Nothing in here about him disliking roses or gardening. Oh, wait; he doesn't approve of petunias."

"Well, that explains the fifty pounds of plaster in my mother's window boxes. She's gonna be mad about that."

"That's small stuff. Tell me the rest of it."

Kurama told his story, even the part about the confetti wedgie. In sympathy, Kuwabara and Yuusuke told him theirs. At the end of it all, Kurama looked mournfully into his empty teacup and sighed. "Poor Hiei."

"Why 'poor Hiei'?" Kuwabara demanded. "Why are you feeling sorry for that shrimpy renegade?"

"If this pattern plays out like I think it's going to play out, Hiei's the next target." Kurama said. "Kuwabara, Yuusuke, consider this; Hiei has a great deal of dignity and no sense of humor whatsoever. The Harlequin has played a number of dirty little tricks on us, from cards to nose-honking to confetti wedgies. How well do you think Hiei's going to take that?"

"Urk." Yuusuke said.

"I think I'll go and build a bomb shelter." Kuwabara added.

"I may join you." Said Genkai. "Kurama, keep an eye out for this creature. If he shows up here again, I want to hear about it. Got that?"

"Yessir!"

"Good boy. Next time, read your mail first."

"Okay." Kurama paused then, remembering something. "Hey, Genkai, the Harlequin was messed up enough to forget this when he left. Would it help?" He pulled the sword from behind him and handed it to Genkai.

"Kurama," Genkai said as she reverently took the sword from him. "I could find out both where he is and what is wrong with him with this thing."

At that point, the teapot's lid shot off, followed by a geyser of water, and the all the candles started burning with a red-and-black flame. "Incoming!" Shouted Genkai.

The others hit the floor as a yellow-eyed shadow swooped down out of a dark corner like an oversized bat and snatched the blade from the floor where Genkai had dropped it, and then disappeared in a cloud of confetti. The teapot stopped spitting at that point, and the candles returned to normal.

"What the hell was that?" Yuusuke asked, lifting himself off of the floor. "And for that matter, Genkai, why are you wearing those Groucho glasses?"

"The teapot and the candles were a side effect of the security systems failing to keep the Harlequin out. The Groucho glasses are a side effect of the Harlequin being silly again. By the way, you're wearing a party hat, Kuwabara's wearing a tutu, and Kurama is now wearing a dress. He looks better in it than I would, come to think of it."

Kurama blushed bright red, looking very uncomfortable and incredibly feminine. Kuwabara was unable to contain his laughter. "Hey!" Kurama said, still red as a cherry. "You're looking pretty cute too, tutu boy! Especially the pretty pink bows in your hair!"

Things would have gone drastically downhill at this point if Genkai hadn't shoved the two of them into the back room. "There are a couple of robes in the closet." She said. "I suggest that you make use of them."

"Yes, Ma'am." They said in dismal unison.

ooooo

Hiei sat on the top of his favorite pine tree, thinking. He was reminiscing about last winter at the ice rinks, where Kurama had tried to teach him how to ice skate. Hiei hadn't been any good at it, but he got all sorts of enjoyment watching his friend skim over the ice like a bird. His favorite scene had been a quiet one. The moon had been very full, and the night was still as the heart of amber. A dusting of silver snow was falling, outlining Kurama in a glittering nimbus as he gracefully skated around the court. Tonight was much like that night; the moon was just as full, the night just as quiet, the snowfall just as silver. Perhaps he and Kurama could, like that other night last winter, do again what they had done that night in the snowdrifts... Hold it. It's not winter.

Hiei looked up, trying to find the source of the drifting sparkles. Someone was standing right behind him with a fistful of silver glitter and eyes like topaz. Then, to his surprise, his Evil Eye jerked wide open. He had left his headband off tonight. He had been feeling a little jumpy for some reason and didn't want to be caught unawares by anything. It hadn't worked.

Without his wishing it, Hiei looked into the mind of the Harlequin and saw...

 _...delighted laughter of innocent children mixing rainbow-colored sweet threads with demented mad merriment of crazed carnivals in a blaze of darkness coming light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming dragon endless curiosity broken in billions of shards in a shattered universe in the mind of mine own memory small jokes big jokes nice jokes nasty jokes the cards are all jokers the tarot says so and I am the tarot hear my singing the discordant music of the itinerant performers freaks and frauds and too-real magicks tangled in the lights that outshine the stars and lend their color to the featureless population there is no reality here mundanes have no faces we have many they are me and I am them and have been them for thousands of thousands of thousands aw you get the picture you see the carnivals the circuses the festivals the feasts it goes further back I'll tell you even the daimyos and shoguns and emperors had to laugh at something at the tricks that brought down egos but only I laughed at the tricks that brought down empires it goes all the way back to the Early Times when the first man-ape thought to put old seaweed on a sleeping chieftain's head he smelled funny for just days they had a good giggle about that I can tell you and it's only gotten better since then every time someone laughs at another's humiliation at another's tricks and jokes it is a prayer to me as you can guess I'm pretty strong by now wanna see you have silver confetti in your hair what were you thinking about anyway your temperature went up several degrees for a moment there did you know that..._

Hiei tore his mind away with an effort, for there is always something perversely fascinating about a twisted mind. He tied his headband on, not wanting to have that experience again. He looked up again, just to make sure that what he saw was real and not a hallucination. It wasn't. The Harlequin gave him a Mona Lisa smile and vigorously rubbed the rest of the confetti into Hiei's hair. Hiei growled, whipped out his sword, and attempted to stick it up the Harlequin's nose. Just one problem with that, though. Not only was Hiei short, but he was sitting down. The Harlequin was six and a half feet tall and had stood up straight the moment Hiei went for his sword. All the same, it nearly worked, missing the 'Quin's nose by a quarter inch.

The Harlequin critically tested the sharpness of the point with one finger, nodded, and drew his own blade. Hiei wasn't going to take this sitting down. He sprang to another tree and turned to face his opponent. The Harlequin lifted his sword in salute and sprang towards Hiei, his blade flashing silver in the moonlight. Hiei met his attack with the smooth skill of decades of survival practice. The sound of the clashing swords rang through the night like militant bells as they danced through the treetops, and Hiei found himself enjoying the fight. Kuwabara had a flashy sword, but he had little skill or technique with it. Sparring with him was boring, but this guy! This stripey weirdo had finesse! The fight soon exhausted the possibilities of the treetops, so they took it down to ground level and battled around the trunks instead. Down there, however, the fight ceased to be fun as the Harlequin's sword tricks turned frustrating and annoying. The Harlequin began using confetti again, and it is very hard to concentrate when fireworks are trying to lodge themselves in your ear. Hiei was in a pretty foul temper when they stopped for a breather in a clearing.

The Harlequin leaned his sword against one shoulder and gave Hiei a faintly puzzled look, as if trying to figure something out. "What's your problem?" Hiei asked angrily.

His foe gave him a silly grin and made a series of gestures that communicated to Hiei what he was thinking; something along the lines of: "You're a pretty good swordsman, for somebody who's knee-high to a crab louse."

Hiei was very sensitive about his height, or rather lack thereof, and he was in a rotten mood already. With a roar, he cast away his sword and rushed the Harlequin, grabbing the horns that curled from his temples in preparation of ripping his head right off. Hiei knew that he had made a serious mistake the moment he saw the Harlequin drop his sword and reach for his chest. He was prepared to fight on with three or four broken ribs, but he had no idea of what was in store for him.

Two seconds later, he was rolling on the ground, clutching his ribs, and howling. "AAARGHhahahahanononostopstopHELP! Stop!"

Hiei had found out to his horror that he was helplessly, hopelessly, unbelievably ticklish.

The Harlequin eventually stopped and pirouetted away, laughing silently. Hiei dragged himself to his feet, breathless, furious and thoroughly humiliated. He had had quite enough of this dancing lunatic. His paltry tricks and silly confetti could not possibly stand up to the might of the Black Dragon.

"Kokuryuuha!" He shouted, ripping the bandage off of his forearm.

The Dragon boiled off of his wrist with a roar that shattered windows up to four miles away, arching into the sky in a display of sheer power, dimming the moon in a bloody flare. The Harlequin merely grinned and applauded, as though the Black Dragon was merely an unusual fireworks display. At that point, the Dragon arced back down again, intent on messy destruction. A split second before the monster struck, the Harlequin pulled out a card the size of a church door -an Ace of course; he had it up his sleeve- and ducked behind it as the Dragon cannoned dead center into the barrier.

 **W** **HAM** **!**

For some reason, neither the card nor the 'Quin messily disintegrated. Instead, the Dragon struggled to get through, writhed, wavered, and finally slunk back onto Hiei's forearm in the manner of one slightly stunned. Hiei dropped to the ground on his butt, too weak to stand, but not quite drained enough to pass out face first into the dirt. For some obscure reason, he had a headache in his wrist.

Hiei Looked up rather dazedly at the Harlequin, who had turned the card into a beach towel and was standing there and grinning at him with the towel over his shoulder. Then the collar flashed, nearly doubling the 'Quin over, gasping. Another Harlequin suddenly grew out of the first one's back, one that wore no collar. The second 'Quin stepped around and neatly punched its distressed twin out with a solid, businesslike blow. Hiei blinked as the original hit the dirt with an oddly satisfying thump. The Carbon-Copy 'Quin then picked up its out-cold brother, gave Hiei a look that spoke volumes of apology, and ambled off into the forest.

Hiei sat for a moment in total bafflement. What had just happened in the last five minutes was totally impossible, but yet all those things had still happened. What had just happened? How could it have happened? Who could tell him the answers?

Genkai. Genkai knew lotsa neat stuff. Would she know about a psychotic clown? Probably. Genkai knew everything. Genkai was _good_. Yeah. _Aargh!_

Hiei scrambled to his feet and made fast tracks toward the temple, half-teleporting, half running.

ooooo

Hiei slammed the temple's door back on its tracks almost hard enough to rip it clean off the wall. He leaned on the door frame for a moment, panting. Then, with a singularly sour look for all the people inside, he stated clearly: "I'm. Hallucinating."

He then stomped inside, snatched Kuwabara's cup, slurped half of it, and then sniffed it suspiciously. "Where's the sake?" He demanded.

Kuwabara looked ready to protest over the sudden annexation of his teacup, but one look at Hiei- tired, charred here and there, jacket full of holes, bandage dangling loosely from one wrist, and confetti falling from his scalp like snow, and wisely decided not to press the issue.

Genkai smiled sagely. "I take it that you met the Harlequin. Tell me what happened."

Hiei glared at her and remained silent.

Genkai sighed. "It was that sort of fight, eh? Oh, all right." She took a clean cup, half-filled it with tea and brought out a small hip flask.

"Genkai!" Yukina said, shocked.

"Yes, I know it's a filthy habit." Genkai said, pouring a liberal amount into the teacup. "It does come in handy at times, however." She added, handing the cup to Hiei, who chugged it.

Two cups of sake-laced tea later, Hiei was definitely mellower. "Fess up, boy." Genkai said then. "Tell me what happened."

Hiei gave her a slightly unfocused scowl, leaned on Kurama's shoulder for support and muttered something.

"What was that?" She asked.

"He tickled me." Hiei grumped.

"He _what_?!"

"He tickled me, all right?"

"You- You're _ticklish_?" Kuwabara sputtered, and then he started laughing.

Hiei may have been slightly tipsy, but he was still able to land a respectable backhanded punch on Kuwabara's face, sending him backward through a couple of walls, where he landed with a splash in something. "My miso!" Hinageshi cried, dashing after him.

"Kazuma-chan!" Yukina cried, following her.

"Frgnhrgin moth-eaten mother of vinegar." Hiei grumbled into his cup.

Yuusuke then noticed something unusual about Hiei's tattoo. "Hiei?" He asked. "Why does your Dragon have a little band-aid on its head? It looks very unhappy somehow."

"He deflected it."

"Hold it." Kurama said in disbelief. "How the hells did he do that?"

"He had a -hic!- an ace up his sleeve. One the size of one of your Ningen church doors."

Genkai, Yuusuke, and Kurama groaned at the stupid joke. "I think you'd better tell it from the top, Hiei." Genkai said seriously. "This is serious. That Dragon counts as a god."

"What, tell all of it?"

"Yup."

Hiei told the story of his fight in a slightly slurred voice as Genkai retrieved her scroll again. Kuwabara, sporting a shiner and trailing bits of kelp, came into the room in time to hear most of it, and this time, he refrained from chortling at the funnier bits. As the tale wound down to its finish, Hiei got unsteadily to his feet, clutching his empty cup in one fist. "- And then he pulls this big card outta -hic!- his shleeve, and _wham_! The Dragon hitsh it, and can't get through it and comesh back to my arm and I gotta headache in my wrisht." Hiei raised his cup toward the ceiling in a dramatic gesture of drunken resolve and declared: "And if I ever shee that shtupid guy again..."

Hiei's grip tightened on the cup, and the delicate porcelain shattered. Hiei, however, did not seem to notice; he merely stood there with a curiously lucid expression on his face. Then he fell like the mighty oak falls in the forest, with only the squirrels to applaud its descent. He hit the floor flat on his back with a soft thud. "Hic!" he said.

Kurama sighed and tried to help Hiei back into a sitting position, only to wind up with Hiei curled up in his lap, buzzing happily. Kurama blushed and refused to meet the eyes of his teammates. Genkai had been too busy looking through the scroll to notice, fortunately. "Nope." She murmured. "Nothing in here about him hating pine trees, sword fights, or short people." Genkai must have been a little more tired than she thought, for the scroll slipped out of her hands. "Whoops!"

She caught it before it hit her cup, but she wound up holding it backwards so that the illustration was facing Hiei. With a growl, he leapt off of Kurama's lap with his sword flashing erratically, intent on doing the image in. Instead, he nearly killed the teapot. Hiei gave his sword a sour, off-center glare, pulled it out of the low table, and curled back up in Kurama's lap again.

Blushing furiously for the second time in as many minutes, Kurama strove to divert attention from himself. "Genkai," Said he, "Just what is the Harlequin? He can't just be some renegade Makai carnival reject. It takes a lot of power to fend off my garden and my Rose Whip; this guy had more than enough."

"Yeah!" Yuusuke said. "The 'Quin caught and channeled my Rei Gun like it was nothing! What gives?"

"Or my Rei Sword!" Kuwabara added. "How come his sword didn't shatter when I hit it?"

"How 'bout -hic!- the Kokuryuuha?" Hiei asked. "Psychotic clowns don't deflect Dragons." He then looked around, smiling rather foolishly in the hopes that somebody would congratulate him for getting through that sentence without tripping over his own tongue. No one did.

Genkai sighed almost sadly and rolled up the scroll. "Sorry for not telling you kids about his true nature earlier, but I was a little frazzled. I get that way whenever a Deity doesn't act the way it's supposed to."

"A _Deity_?" They chorused in shock.

"You're telling me that stripey maniac is a _God_?" Kuwabara demanded.

"Yup, and he's one of the oldest ones, though he's not very well known to the general public."

"Oh, well," Yuusuke said rather weakly. "We've faced gods before. How strong is this one?"

"Believe it or not, the Harlequin is stronger than Kouenma."

"Then how come he isn't running one of the other worlds?" Kurama asked.

"He doesn't want to. He's got incredible wads of power at his command, but he chooses not to use it. That choice drives the other gods, good and evil, totally bananas."

"How'd he get that strong?" Kuwabara asked. "He must have some incredible workout tapes."

"If you shut up, I'll tell you the story, okay?" Genkai paused. The room was dead silent. "Right. Well, kids, the Harlequin got his start just when Humanity did, some two million years ago when the apes were learning about walking upright and lower back pain. Life was pretty rotten back then, so the Harlequin gave the proto-humans the one thing that made it bearable: A sense of humor. "I'm afraid he cheated there. He arranged it so that he didn't need the same kind of prayers and incense and temples that the other gods required; those kinds of things get boring after a while for most people. Instead, he settled for fun things. Jokes, pranks, and laughter are his prayers. Feasts, festivals, circuses, and carnivals are his temples. Clowns, jesters and fools are his priests, and his incense is the smell of cotton candy, popcorn, and all the other snacks associated with such things.

Humans love to party, and have loved it ever since the very beginning. A god's strength lies in the amount of worship it receives, and the 'Quin gets billions of prayers and tons of homage every day."

"Wow." Yuusuke said, awed. "I bet the other Gods all wanted him to be their buddy."

"You don't know the half of it." Genkai replied. "The evil gods admired his knack for dark and destructive pranks, not to mention the punch that he packed in a fight. They offered him high standing among their ranks, but he told them to stick it and danced off to oversee some kid's birthday party.

"The good Gods admired him for the merriment and goodwill that he brought our world; plus they wanted to get a grip on all that power, of course. He thumbed his nose at them and ambled off to throw water balloons at the Prime Minister."

"And rub confetti into my hair." Muttered Hiei.

"I take it that you didn't read my message, either?"

"Genkai," Kurama said quietly. "Hiei can't read. He never had the leisure to learn."

Genkai stared at him for a moment, and then fined herself a slap on the forehead. "Duh! What a time to forget something like that!"

Hiei snickered and snuggled deeper into Kurama's front. "Update your scroll while you're at it." He said. "'S not accurate. Picture doesn't have a collar."

"Come again?" Genkai said, looking sharply at him.

"'Quin had a collar on. His picture doesn't."

"A collar."

"Yup, yup, a collar. Nice thick gold one with funny symbols on it. It flashed and he bent over and there were two of him and the second hit the first one in the nose andandffbttzng... Zzzzz."

Hiei snored when he was drunk, sometimes. It sounded like a cross between a cat's purr and a very small, very quiet cement mixer.

"Somebody's controlling him then." Yuusuke said. "That's scary."

"I should have realized it from the start." Genkai muttered. "We're going to have to catch him, you know, to get that collar off."

"How the hell are we going to do that?!" Kuwabara exploded. "He nearly took us apart!"

"Gang up on him." Kurama offered, gently scratching his buzzing friend behind the ears. "Did you notice how he only went for us one at a time? Even someone with a mind like a broken mirror has trouble paying attention when there are four or five people coming at him at once."

"That's a good idea, but just how are we going to find that stripey maniac?" Yuusuke said. "We don't know just where he hangs out during the daytime."

"Carnival." Hiei murmured.

"Say that again?" Genkai said uneasily.

"Carnival. 'S a travelling party that's -don't stop scratching, Kurama- settled in th' Manga district for the past few days. After t'morrow night, 's gonna leave. 'S nice. 'S got all flashy lights 'n roller coasters 'n Ferris wheel 'n wild animals 'n weird tents 'n that thing that goes roundy-roundy-roundy-throw up."

"The Python." Kuwabara groaned. "I do _not_ want to chase the Harlequin around on that. I feel sick just watching that thing."

"Or the roller coaster." Yuusuke quavered.

"The Fun House." Genkai said gloomily. "I've always hated those."

"The Hall of Mirrors." Kurama stated grimly.

"Th' -hic!- Tunnel of Love." Hiei said happily.

They all looked at him funny. Hiei went back to sleep.

"Actually," Genkai said thoughtfully, shaking off her earlier gloom. "It's not a bad idea at all. Carnivals are one of the Harlequin's favorite hangouts, so he'll be there. I know that he doesn't approve of being controlled by anybody -who does?- so he may well simply allow us to catch him. Then again, he might decide to give us a real run for our money. Either way, this has to be done, and as soon as possible."

"Not tonight." Kurama said, indicating Hiei. "Hiei's in no shape to go clown hunting right now."

"Good point." Genkai said, peering at the little fire demon, who was still shedding confetti. "I'll meet you at the carnival tomorrow at seven in the afternoon. It'll give us time to catch him napping if he feels nocturnal."

"And if he doesn't?" Asked Kuwabara.

"Then we get to chase him around on the Python. Good night, fellas."

ooooo

Everybody arrived right on time the next day, and met outside the grounds. They had not come unprepared; Yuusuke and Kuwabara had coils of rope slung bandolier-like over their shoulders, Kurama had a fresh rose tucked behind one ear, Genkai had brought a grappling hook and a pouch full of useful gadgets, and Hiei had a slim chain coiled inside his jacket. There was a bit of a problem with getting into the Carnival, however. Everybody except Kurama had forgotten to bring any money, and Kurama didn't have enough to get them all in. Hiei solved that problem by disappearing into the crowd for a moment. When he returned, he presented somebody else's loaded wallet. Kuwabara and Yuusuke were fine with this, of course, but Genkai and Kurama muttered curses under their breath as Hiei bought them their tickets. Hiei just looked smug.

They searched that Carnival from top to bottom and from end to end, but they found no trace of the Harlequin anywhere. By the time that they stopped for a rest at a row of picnic tables, the sun had set and all the colored lights had been lit. Yuusuke and Genkai sank down onto a bench with near-identical sighs of weariness; Kuwabara had wandered off in search of a cup of noodles. Kurama had purchased a stick of cotton candy at Hiei's insistence- he still hadn't figured the stuff out. "It's just spun sugar, Hiei." Kurama said, sitting down across from Genkai.

Hiei eyed the poofy mass suspiciously. "Pink fluffy sugar? How do they get it like that, then? Do they grow it?"

"No. They have this special machine that heats the sugar and spins it around the stick in tiny threads, and then they pour the color in."

"It can be any color."

"Yes. Look, just try it, okay?"

"What's it taste like?"

"Sweet."

"Sweet what?"

"No! It's colored sugar, Hiei. Sugar tastes sweet; that's all there is to it."

"Even with the color?

"Yes."

"Okay." Hiei tore off a piece, sniffed cautiously, and popped it into his mouth. After a second or two, his eyes brightened and he tore into the rest of the fluff with gusto.

"Hey, watch it with that stuff," Yuusuke said. "It'll make you hyper."

"Mind your own business." Hiei growled around a mouthful.

ooooo

Kuwabara had returned and scarfed his noodles, and Hiei had demolished another stick of cotton candy -a blue one this time- before they noticed the change in the music. For the last three hours they had been listening to the normal calliope music that is the trademark of carnivals, a slightly off-key jingle that sounds like a cross between an accordion and an organ. It had become a sort of white noise, meaningless sounds that are easily ignored. Someone had changed that. It was now playing a menacing version of "Hall of the Mountain King".

"Guys," Genkai said evenly. "Look over there."

Between a couple of tents off to their right, an unpleasantly familiar shadow was dancing. They all started moving in that direction with the slow, deliberate tread of the hunter. It was the Harlequin, all right. He had attracted a crowd with his antics. He was currently juggling three knives, four flaming torches, two stuffed toy penguins, and one dwarf from the freak tent. The team spread out in the front of the crowd, ready to strike; Hiei had hit the sugar rush by now and was visibly vibrating. That was probably what gave them away. The Harlequin locked gazes with all five of them, and then he unloaded his hands. The knives flew over the heads of the audience and buried themselves in a telephone pole, the torches wound up in a vat of lemonade, the penguins flew into the arms of two children, and the dwarf landed squarely in Kurama's arms. The 'Quin dusted off his hands, thumbed his nose at Yuusuke, and ran like crazy in the general direction of the roller coasters. "After him!" Bellowed Kuwabara and took off after him, the others following close on his heels as Kurama was trying to detach the dwarf from his shirt.

Kurama caught up with the rest of them as they reached the roller coasters. They were in full swing, cars full of screaming tourists whizzing up and down the tracks at frightening speeds. It didn't scare the Harlequin one bit, and he went up the scaffolding like a squirrel. Yuusuke and the others had little choice but to follow.

The Carnival boasted on all of its posters that it had the biggest and most complex portable roller coaster in the world, and they weren't kidding. There were no loop-the-loops on it, but it had sharp turns and sudden drops aplenty. It had been aptly named "Spaghetti Bowl". The Harlequin was leading them right into the booming heart of the ride, dodging the rumbling cars with varying degrees of success. Kuwabara's jacket would never be the same again.

They finally managed to corner the Harlequin on the highest point of the structure, the main drop near the start of the course. "Give it up and come quietly!" Yuusuke shouted.

No such luck. The Harlequin made a face at him and sprang lightly into the air, cape becoming a pair of wings, and he soared effortlessly away.

"How'd he do that?" Muttered Yuusuke. A sudden vibration of the scaffolding then told him that they'd better get out of the way in a hurry. Hiei, however, was too busy watching their quarry get away to notice. "Look out!"

Hiei spun around in time to see the cars coming toward him and he jumped, but not quite high enough. Instead of landing behind the cars, he wound up landing in the middle of them as they roared over the tracks.

The rest of the team met him at the exit ramp a few minutes later. Hiei staggered out of the exit, and clung to Kurama for balance. "Wow." He said as soon as his ears stopped ringing. "I wanna do that one again."

"Later." Genkai said, heroically not laughing. "We have a clown to catch."

"Oh, yeah. Let's go!" Hiei took off in the direction that the Harlequin had gone.

"Sugar high." Muttered Kurama. "He's not going to be a happy camper when it wears off. C'mon, let's go."

They found the Harlequin again because of the pie. It whizzed out of the darkness just above the door of the Fun House and hit Genkai right in the face, splattering Yuusuke with whipped cream. The Harlequin grabbed the lintel and swung inside like an Olympic athlete as Genkai struggled to get the pie out of her eyes, eventually just wiping her face on Kuwabara's ruined jacket. "Where'd that little bastard get to?!" she demanded.

"In there." Hiei said, pointing into the garishly colored interior of the Fun House.

"Crap." She muttered. "I _hate_ fun houses."

Inside the Fun House was a world of darkness, bright colors, and an interior design scheme that would have warmed the heart of M. C. Escher. The Harlequin was waiting for them, balanced on the rail of an inverted bridge, smiling. "Get him!" Hiei shouted, springing forward with the energy of the terminally sugar-loaded.

The Harlequin, seemingly puzzled at Hiei's attitude, retreated into a padded tubular hall, the team close at his heels. Hiei made a grab for his cape, but lost his footing when the floor began to move. The hall started to rotate like a sideways tornado, spinning far too fast for comfort. When they finally got out, they had to lie down until the room stopped turning. Kuwabara was noisily sick behind a misshapen mirror for a few minutes. "Right." He said once the heaving had stopped. "Remind me to blow this place up at some point."

"Okay." Genkai replied rather greenly.

"(Fizz)" was all that Yuusuke could contribute at the moment.

They hauled themselves up off the floor eventually, and peered around the room suspiciously. No sign of the Harlequin. "There!" Kurama cried, pointing down another hall, where something stripey was clambering up a rope ladder in the next room.

As one, they dashed down the hall and into the next room, only to discover that the designer had forgotten to add a floor into the blueprints. They fell eight feet into a pit of foam rubber chunks, chunks that turned out to be covering a trampoline. It was _very_ difficult getting to the ladder, what with all the bouncing and foam and Hiei flying out of control all over the place. "What the hell is this?!" he demanded on his way across the room.

"Trampoline!" Genkai shouted, catching hold of his shirt and bringing him marginally under control. "Gods, but I hate Fun Houses!"

"Hear, hear!" Kuwabara said, managing to grab the ladder.

With his help, they were able to climb out of the pit. The next room was a long, narrow one that had obviously been decorated by a color-blind madman. As they ran down it, dozens of panels on the wall popped open, and a multitude of puppets emerged in a spray of confetti and a cacophony of honks, giggles, tweedles, and cackles. The team was in no mood for such idiocy, and smashed their way through, leaving uncountable broken puppets lying forlornly on the floor. After that, the trail split three ways, all of them lit by strobe lights, with things moving unpleasantly in the abbreviated glare. Yuusuke was tired of this. "Rei Gun!" he shouted, and blew a hole clear through the wall. Fortunately, it was an outside wall, and they tumbled out into the calmer dimness of the night. They paused for breath there, picking bits of marionette out of their clothing. Just then, a black-and-red shadow flickered out of the Fun House exit and scampered off across the grounds. "There he goes!" Kurama said, and once again the team lit out after the fleeing Harlequin. They began to falter after a few hundred yards, though, and came to a wheezing halt by another row of picnic tables.

"Hey guys," Yuusuke said once he had gotten some breath back. "Look over there."

They looked. Aah, manna from heaven! A beverage stand was doing brisk business right across the road from them. As one, they converged upon it, and demanded one of everything. With Ice. "Hey, Kurama," Hiei said, holding up a large paper cup of something brown. "What's this stuff?"

"Fbrbleb." Kurama replied, nose deep in a lemonade. "Coke Slurpee." He said when he came up for air.

"What's it taste like?"

"Dunno. Never tried one."

"Good enough for me." Hiei said, and then downed the entire thing in one gulp. His eyes grew very wide after a few moments, and his face brightened strangely. "Oooo."

"Now you've done it." Kuwabara said as Hiei started to fidget. "Coke Slurpees are pure caffeine laced with enough sugar to choke a horse. We're never gonna get him calmed down now."

"Oh, he'll calm down all right." Genkai said grimly, putting down her empty cup. "Come on. Let's find that psychotic mime and jump up and down on him or something."

"Or something." Kuwabara said. "I _like_ 'or something'"

It took them half an hour to find the Harlequin again. When they did, he was teaching an eight-year-old girl how to fence with balloon swords. With a shout they were after him again, and the child found herself holding two balloon swords and a small bag of itching powder as she watched the dust cloud recede into the distance. It was very late now and the crowds had thinned somewhat. This was just as well, with the way the 'Quin was racing though the cramped alleys and byways with the whole of the Yu Yu Hakusho barreling after him like a runaway elephant.

The Harlequin was annoyed. He had grown rather fond of these yahoos and didn't really mean to give them such a rough time here. He could feel Yashi's mind crawling around his brain like a swarm of centipedes; a most disturbing feeling. How he hated the Demon King! He knew very well that if he closed with any of his pursuers, he would be forced to kill them. Keep running, then. Maybe they would get tired and go away. No, no, he wanted them to catch him! He knew they wanted to get the collar off, but if they did manage to grab him he'd have to either blow them up or think very, very hard about wombats. Yashi had never been truly able to comprehend wombats fully, and therein lay a weakness. The Harlequin smiled as he dodged a flailing Rose Whip. He was very good at exploiting weaknesses. But first-

The Harlequin dodged around a corner, jumped up a flight of steps, and splashed into a low, dark, water-filled tunnel. There was a yelp behind him as his pursuers flattened the ride operator and a lot of splashing as they chased him down the tunnel, darting around and jumping off of the swan-shaped boats. It was at this point where something untoward happened. Kurama mistimed a jump and landed in a boat right next to one of his classmates from school. " _Minamino-san!_ " she squealed and cuddled up, throwing her arms around his neck.

"Aaiieee!" Kurama said in return.

Hearing this, Hiei screeched to a halt and about-faced, and quickly found the boat his friend was having trouble with. Leaping onto the prow of the boat, he thrust his head forward into the girl's face. "Mine!" he snarled, baring sharp fangs.

The girl screamed and threw herself back against the seat. "Excuse me." Kurama said, polite as ever, and leaped out of the boat.

They caught up with the others a few minutes later. "What took you so long?" Yuusuke said. "Stopped for a bit of romance?"

"Shut up, Yuusuke." Kurama said.

"So who kissed who?"

" _Shut up, Yuusuke!_ " growled Hiei.

"Alright, alright. No need to get grouchy. *Hee hee hee!*"

ooooo

They nearly had the Harlequin again when he ducked into another building. They were halfway through it before they realized just where he had led them. They found out where they were rather quickly when Kuwabara tried to tackle the 'Quin, and wound up in a heap on the floor with a headache. "Aw, no." Yuusuke moaned as strange and distorted images danced around him. "The Hall of Mirrors!"

"He can't hide here if there aren't any." Genkai said and demolished a mirror.

Everybody started smashing glass with gusto. Each time a black-and-red image darted across a pane, someone would break it. Before long, though, they started running out of mirrors, and the ''Quin still hadn't been flushed out. At last, Kuwabara smashed a grinning clownish image, and although the glass went away, the image didn't. As Kuwabara stood there trying to adjust to this, the Harlequin grinned at him and got him right in the face with a water balloon.

There was a great roaring and smashing of glass as the team chased their quarry out of what was left of the Hall of Mirrors. Another wild goof chase through the Carnival ensued, attracting a crowd. "It's the running of the fools!" someone in the audience shouted.

"Where?" cried another.

"They went Hemingway!" Yet another chimed in, pointing in the direction of the chase.

Then they all ran after, to see what would happen next.

Our heroes were too wrapped up in what they were doing to notice the crowd running after them, but they did notice where the Harlequin was heading. "Aw, no!" Kuwabara wailed. "Not the Python!"

Yes, the Python. It and its ilk are known across the worlds by many names; the Octopus, the Constrictor, the Tentacle, and the Hydra. There was even a version in the Makai called the Demon-Serpent. All of them were built on the same lines as this one, and it, too was in full swing, waving and spinning and going roundy-roundy-up 'n' down-and throw up. Kuwabara was already a little green around the gills. The Harlequin was not fazed by this dramatic display of mechanical confusion, and swung up on one of the arms like a gymnast in a nightmare. Hiei was too hyper to care and jumped up after him, followed by Genkai, Yuusuke, and Kurama, all of whom could polka in freefall without breaking a sweat. Kuwabara had to force himself to follow.

The Harlequin was jumping from arm to arm to car back to arm again, dodging the various whips and ropes that four of the team were snapping at him. It wasn't easy. All the motion and lights noise and jumping and four people throwing things at him were playing merry hell with his concentration. Hold it. Four? Where was the fifth?

Hiei did not like the Harlequin at all. He tended to do horrible things to people that he didn't like. He felt he owed the Harlequin at least a split spine and a beheading, god or not. Unfortunately, he had a problem. His eyesight and balance did not seem to be working quite right, and his target was moving in ways that should have been impossible. Nevertheless, the time for vengeance was now!

With a shriek, Hiei sprang at the Harlequin, intent on doing the aforementioned horrible things. However, the arm that the 'Quin was riding at the moment went up when it should have gone down. Hiei collided heavily with his target's upper back, sending them both crashing into the dirt. The others wasted no time in pouncing on the prone god, trussing him up like a Christmas turkey. Hiei climbed onto their captive's back and started bonking the Harlequin's head with the hilt of his sword. He was distracted a moment later by the crowd, which had burst into applause. Kuwabara, still a little green, got up, dusted himself off, and started posturing for the audience. "I, the great Kuwabara Kazuma, have just vanquished the greatest hassle of all time!" He said, and then started to make a speech.

Hiei and Yuusuke looked at each other, agreeing wordlessly that something must be done to deflate this windbag before he exploded on his own. Hiei got up off of the 'Quin's back and clambered up onto Yuusuke's shoulders. They snuck up behind the wildly posturing Kuwabara and started giving him bunny ears and antlers and things while the others looked on as the crowd began to laugh. The Harlequin, seeing that he was being ignored, calmly untangled himself and started to wander off while thinking deeply about wombats. Hiei, however, had marvellous peripheral vision. He turned his head just in time to see the Harlequin amble off. With a shout, he leaped off of Yuusuke's shoulders, rebounded off of Kuwabara's head, and tackled the 'Quin with a move that any football player would envy and started bonking him with his sword again. The others tied him up again, bowed to their audience, and left, carrying the 'Quin on their shoulders. Once outside the Carnival, certain things had to happen. Kuwabara had to be sick again in an alley. His poor, abused stomach was having Python flashbacks. Hiei, however, had it much worse. He tottered suddenly and fell over clutching his head as he learned the hard way about what happens when the sugar high wears off. "Help, Kurama," he moaned. "I'm dying again!"

"What's wrong?" Genkai asked.

"Dunno. I got all tired at once and my head's trying to explode. Or fall off. Whatever. Ow."

"It's called 'sugar crash'. This is why you don't eat two sticks of cotton candy and wash them down with a Coke Slurpee. It'll wear off eventually."

Hiei's only answer was a whimper as he tried to keep all the pieces of his skull in more or less the same place. Kurama gently picked him up, cradling Hiei in his arms like a baby. He looked up, daring the others to make an issue of it. "Let's go." He said shortly.

The trip back to the temple was mercifully uneventful. Mind you, this was only in comparison. The Harlequin didn't like being tied up all that much and managed to get confetti down everybody's shirts.

A very sleepy Yukina opened the door for them as they manhandled their grumpy captive inside and sat him down firmly in the middle of the room. "How'd it go?" Yukina asked them.

"Difficult." Genkai said, pulling an old book out of the hidden compartment and flipping through it. "He really didn't want to be caught."

"I'll make some tea and miso."

"Bless you, Yukina!" Kuwabara said with feeling. Having thrown up twice in one night, he was feeling more than a little empty.

Yukina blushed happily and left the room.

Genkai found the page she wanted, read the appropriate paragraphs, and peered at the Harlequin. He was sitting quietly cross-legged on the floor, eyes slitted and his face a mask of concentration. She moved closer carefully, tipped his chin up with one finger, and examined the collar. "Let's see." She murmured. "The symbols are ancient Demonic. It's an outside-assisted binding spell with painful reminder options- ow!" A mousetrap had been hidden somehow in the book. As Genkai had turned the page, it bit her squarely in the knuckles. She pried it off and glared suspiciously at the Harlequin, but he remained as immobile and straight-faced as a monolith. "Reflex pranks." She reassured the others. "He's not even paying attention."

Genkai checked her book very carefully for more booby traps. Finding none, she looked up the binding spell on the collar, and how to remove it. "Okay. All we need to do is remove the collar and destroy it." She then took the Harlequin's jaw in a firm grip and tried to find the lock. It took her five minutes, but she managed to locate it, hidden in a particularly swirly design. A few more minutes of peering told her what she needed to know. "Anyone got a lock-pick?" she asked.

They all looked at Kurama, who was still holding Hiei in his arms. "I gave that up years ago." He said in a faintly hurt voice.

Hiei fumbled around inside his shirt and took out a roll of small, delicate tools. "I didn't." He said.

Genkai gave him a hard look, but she wasn't complaining. She selected a thin sharp pick and began carefully poking around in the lock.

The Harlequin was not a happy camper. When you got right down to it, there really wasn't all that much about wombats to comprehend. Yashi was getting really pissed now and was making a real effort to grab control. This was a very nice temple. He really hoped that he wouldn't have to blow it into orbit. What was that old lady doing now? Ah! She had found the lock and was poking around in it with something. She'd better hurry, because his defenses were starting to crumble. Dammit, he wasn't used to concentrating on just one thing for any length of time; how did these ningens manage to do that anyway? I wonder if they give classes? Never mind. I'd probably flunk on account of weirding out the teacher. It was probably an inborn trait, although you wouldn't know it to look at that kid with the Rei Gun, or maybe not. Lady, you done picking that lock yet? Yashi's getting really mad out there. You remind me of a very nice marsupial I was acquainted with once, I- OW! OW! OW! _Oh, crap!_

The Harlequin started to thrash about wildly just as Genkai was getting the hang of picking the lock. "Hold him!" She shouted, attempting to keep her maddened captive from taking a chunk out of her arm with his teeth.

Everybody tackled him at once, trying to hold him still. With a click, the collar came off and rolled across the floor. The Harlequin surged upright, snapped the ropes like string and threw them off, along with the people trying to hold him down. He spat, just once, on the collar, but it sizzled unpleasantly and melted into a blackened lump of unidentifiable moosh. He smiled unpleasantly, and then turned to face Genkai and the others. They stared uneasily at each other for a few minutes, not quite sure what to do now. At this moment, Yukina came in with a steaming teapot and a large tureen of miso. "Hi there!" She said to a rather surprised Harlequin. "Would you join us for tea and miso?"

The Harlequin gave her a rather weak smile and nodded. Hells, but he hadn't had a day this bad since the last great plague. Miso and tea would be very welcome.

The tension decreased visibly during the meal, except perhaps for Yuusuke, who would not take his eyes off of their guest. Harlequin noticed this right off and stared back. This initiated a staring contest, and Yuusuke had never backed down from a challenge. Yuusuke's eyes were watering badly and starting to cross when Genkai decided to defuse the both of them. "We need to talk." She said.

The Harlequin's face became a mask of cold fury, and his eyes flashed red. The expression was only momentary, which was fortunate. Genkai had nearly wet her pants. The Harlequin tapped his throat and shook his head sadly, and then finished his tea. "What's the matter, man?" Yuusuke asked. "Cat got your tongue?"

The Harlequin blew him a raspberry, and then mimed writing. Yukina, helpful as ever, handed him a brush, ink and paper. _"A cat does not have my tongue, you silly person. The Demon King stole my voice."_ He wrote.

"That's bad?" Asked Kuwabara.

The Harlequin gave him a disgusted look, and then transferred his gaze to Genkai. _"Let me guess. You never told them about the Curse."_

"Sorry." She said, contrite. "Slipped my mind."

"A curse?" Kurama said, puzzled.

"The Harlequin's greatest weapon." Genkai said, sipping her soup. "It's a spell spoken in the original Old Tongue of the Gods. Whoever he speaks the Curse to, dies most unpleasantly in a number of different ways. Sometimes it takes two or three tries in one Cursing, depending on just how mad the 'Quin is at his victim."

"I've heard about that." Hiei said with some admiration. "Some Nether-Lord or other got a curse of some sort put on him centuries ago. He said he was strong enough to weather a mere ill-wishing, but the next day, his underlings had to scrape his charred bits off of the walls and ceiling."

 _"The Lord Suku-Yama. Yes. He was a prime dork, wasn't he? No sense of humor at all."_

"So," Kuwabara said slowly, trying to work something out. "Why don't you just write the Curse down, fold it into a paper airplane, and throw it at him?"

The Harlequin stared at him for a moment, unable to believe what he had just heard. An object lesson was needed. He tore off a strip of paper and began to write. It was a spectacularly ugly phrase in a thankfully alien language. It was uglier than a close-up of a scorpion's face, and spewed out more seething hatred than a warehouse full of bigots. Just looking at it invited a rash.

The Harlequin held the scrap up in two fingers, and a second later it spontaneously combusted.

"Oh." Kuwabara said in a small voice. "I guess that it wouldn't work, would it?"

"Twit ningen." Hiei muttered.

Kuwabara's face went red at this insult, but his retort fell flat as the ashes from the burning paper dropped into the Harlequin's empty teacup. The teacup _twisted_ through a number of bizarre dimensions and transformed into a ball of ginger fur the size of a softball. As they watched, it sprouted four pink, three-toed feet and three beady little black eyes. "Queep?" It said.

"At this rate, I may have to get a new tea set." Genkai said with remarkable control. "What is that?"

 _"A Norkie."_ The Harlequin wrote.

"It's adorable!" Yukina cried, picking up the little fluffball and cuddling it. "Can I keep it? Please?"

 _"Go ahead. They eat just about anything, they love being cuddled, and are smarter than they look. I think it would make you an admirable companion."_

"Oh, thank you!"

Hiei looked as though he were about to object, but kept quiet. The Norkie, as though sensing his disapproval, sprang out of Yukina's arms and landed squarely on Hiei's head. Purring, it started to comb his hair with its forepaws. Hiei couldn't do anything about it without hurting his sister's feelings, so he just had to stand there and bear it while Yukina giggled.

Kuwabara felt much better for some reason.

"Yukina," He said in a strained voice as the Norkie went to work on a tangled tuft of hair, "Would you please get this thing off of my head?"

"Oh, sure! Come here, Norkie!" She scooped the furball off of Hiei's head and scampered out of the room.

Hiei watched her go, and then looked Kuwabara straight in the eye. "Not one word." He said.

"Excuse me." Kuwabara said unevenly, and then ran outside. They probably heard his hysterical laughter in New Zealand.

Hiei sat down with a thump, face like a storm cloud, and poured himself another cup of tea.

"You get used to it." Yuusuke said sympathetically. "I have to put up with a mutant penguin, remember?"

"Shut the hell up."

ooooo

As soon as Kuwabara lurched back inside, Genkai decided to get down to the point. "We need to get your voice back." She told the Harlequin. "Any idea of where he keeps it?"

 _"Oh, yes. He's stuck it in the ring he wears on his left hand. The big topaz one. Yashi's got enough protective spells laced around it to immobilize a pyroclasm, but I think that the ring-of-fire trick that I played with that kid- Yuusuke, his name was?- would work nicely. After that, Yashi's toast. One way or another."_

Genkai didn't want to speculate on that. "Fine. Do you have a map of the Inner Makai? Roaches ate mine years ago."

The Harlequin nodded and removed a roll of paper from inside his cape and unrolled it on the table. It was not a map, however. What it turned out to be was a picture of the entire Yu Yu Hakusho dressed in drag, and revealing drag at that. With a yelp, a red-faced Kuwabara pounced on the picture and tore it to shreds.

"Really!" Kurama said, reprovingly. "Purple is _not_ my color."

The Harlequin looked him up and down, and then nodded in agreement as the others looked at Kurama funny.

The 'Quin produced another roll, and this time, it was the map. There were strange symbols and little demon faces marked here and there on it. "What do those mean?" Yuusuke asked.

 _"Party joints, travelling circuses, weak places in the space-time continuum, and the Flying Dutchman Pizza House. I like that place. They have realized that whipped-cream pies are to be thrown, not eaten."_

"Okay, but where's the royal palace?"

The Harlequin whipped a rubber stamp around in one fist and slammed it into roughly the center of the map. When he lifted the stamp away, the word "BULLSHIT", underlined and in scarlet ink, overlay a small, castle-shaped drawing on the map.

They couldn't help laughing at that one. "That's a novel way of putting it." Genkai said. "This map is accurate?"

 _"Very accurate."_

"Good. When's a good time to attack this place?"

 _"Any old time. Yashi can't stop me from coming after him anyway, and he's more afraid of me than he is of you guys. He may set up a few booby traps, though, but not to worry. He may be smarter than your average demon, but that still puts him in the same IQ class as an old sneaker. Unfortunately, tonight is not a good time."_

"How so?" Genkai asked.

 _"Go look in a mirror. You lot look like what's left after a monster truck derby. I'm not going to mount a major assault on a fortress manned by things with more teeth than brain cells until you people are capable of standing upright without professional help."_

"You've got a point." Kurama said around a face-cracking yawn. "Tomorrow, then?"

 _"That'll do nicely. Oh, you- the Kitsune-"_

"Kurama."

 _"Yes, sorry; remember to tuck a sprig of spearmint into a pocket before we go. Believe you me, we're going to need it."_

"Extra weaponry?"

 _"Air freshener. The Inner Makai still hasn't understood the concept of 'plumbing' or 'sewers' quite yet."_

"Eeewww." Yuusuke said.

"Anything else that we should bring?" Hiei asked.

 _"A first-aid kit. I have a hunch that somebody's going to need a band-aid or two."_

"That's normal."

 _"Take one along anyway. If anything, we can use the kit to mess up a sentry or something. Now, get yourselves home and to bed before you fall asleep in your miso. I don't work with zombies."_

In a fit of sarcasm, Kuwabara stood up and adopted the "Frankenstein" pose- blank facial expression, stiff posture, arms stuck straight out and hands dangling limply. "Good night." He intoned, and lurched out.

Yuusuke looked reflexively at his watch, did a double-take when he saw just what time it was, and stood up. "I'd better get home before Mom mobilizes the entire police force to look for me. See you all tomorrow. Kurama, bring lots of mint." Then he left.

Kurama batted long eyelashes at Hiei. "Care to join me tonight?" He asked.

Hiei gave Kurama a disgusted look. "Stupid fox." He muttered and disappeared.

Kurama gave an amused sigh and turned to Genkai and the Harlequin. "I'll see you two tomorrow. Spearmint, right?"

 _"And lots of it."_

"All right. 'Bye."

ooooo

Genkai and the Harlequin sat quietly for a few minutes, savoring the peace and quiet. "So," Genkai said. "What're you going to do tonight?"

 _"I haven't gotten a proper night's sleep since Yashi nabbed me. I was thinking of curling up in the rafters."_

There was a crash from the next room, and Norkie sped out of the doorway, little pink feet blurring. In a flash, the little critter climbed up the Harlequin's cape and took refuge on top of his head, chittering angrily. Yukina ran out after it, comb in one hand and a set of small curlers in the other. "What happened?" Genkai asked.

"I thought he would look cute in curls." Yukina replied.

Norkie took grave exception to that. He stuck out a bright red tongue and gave her a resounding raspberry.

 _"I don't think he likes curls."_ The Harlequin wrote. _"Just leave his fur the way it is."_

"Oh, pooh!"

 _"Don't force the issue. If you give him curls, he may very well shave you bald while you sleep. Or give you a mohawk or something."_

"He wouldn't!" Yukina said, aghast.

"Queep!" Norkie said. It was very clear that he meant: "Try me."

"Just leave it, Yukina." Genkai said. "Good night."

ooooo

It was late in the afternoon the next day before everybody made it to the Temple. Yuusuke came in last, having run into some complications on the way. When he came in, he found Genkai, Yukina, Hinageshi and the others sipping tea and playing "Go Fish" with Norkie. The furball seemed to be winning. "Hey, Yuusuke," Kuwabara said, looking up from his hand. "What took you so long?"

"Everything." Yuusuke replied, sitting down. "The Principal and the Superintendent got on my case for not being a perfect student, my Mom wanted to know just what's been going on for the past week, Keiko wanted an ice-cream cone, and a bunch of losers from one of the gangs in the Manga district wanted to know why we were chasing clowns on their turf. Speaking of clowns, where's ours?"

Everybody pointed at the ceiling without bothering to look up. Yuusuke searched among the rafters for the Harlequin, and got a nasty shock. He was stretched out comfortably along the underside of the center beam, taking a nap as if a mere reversal of gravity was nothing to get excited about. As Yuusuke stared, the 'Quin opened his eyes, smiled, and waved hello.

After some persuasion, they got Norkie and the two girls to continue their game out on the front porch, and the Harlequin ambled down the wall to join them. They spread out the map again -no silly pictures this time- and began to plan. "How do you want to go about it?" Kurama asked. "The last time I went anywhere near that deep into the Inner Makai, I lost an old friend. Hiei, have you been there?"

"Once." Hiei said. "It stank, so I left."

"You'd know a fair amount, 'Quin." Yuusuke said. "It's your call."

The Harlequin narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment. _"Yuusuke, I know_ everywhere. _The Inner Makai is a wasteland. Even slime molds have trouble growing there, especially around the royal palace. Within the bounds of the castle, you're knee-deep in cranky demons, and eyebrow -deep in the smell of generations of cranky demons. The walls of the palace are fifty feet high, spiked on top, surrounded by a moat full of something, I'm not quite sure what, and manned thirty-six hours a day by hordes of hideous mutants. The Palace itself is loaded with yet more demons and various magical nasty things. The Gates of the palace are sealed at all times with eight different kinds of death-spells, each worse than the last. In short, a fairly easy place to get into."_

"Come again?" Kuwabara said, wondering what this wacko considered difficult.

 _"Demons aren't very bright, remember? All those defenses on the walls and they forget about what's up. They're used to ground threats."_

"You've found away around it, haven't you?" Yuusuke said.

 _"Your grasp of the obvious is earthshaking. There's a nest of flying serpents right on the border of Inner and Outer Makai. They'll take us anywhere for a bag of Chinese finger-traps. Even right into Yashi's bedroom."_

Kuwabara seemed to be having trouble understanding something. "What would a flying serpent want with a Chinese finger-trap?" He asked. "They don't have hands or anything, do they?"

 _"Think about it."_

He thought about it. "Oh." Kuwabara said in a small voice.

 _"They tend to go through them rather quickly, what with the scales and all."_

"Can we change the subject, please?"

 _"You brought it up."_

"So, we fly in and then just barge our way into the throne room?" Genkai asked, heading off further embarrassment.

 _"Why barge when we can sneak? It's a lot safer, quicker, and much more fun that way."_

"Is fun all you can think about?" Hiei asked in a cold voice.

 _"Fun is why I am, Firebaby. Don't forget that."_

"I'm assuming you know your way around the demon palace." Genkai cut in, stopping the explosion before it started.

 _"Oh, yes. I spent three weeks haunting that place before Yashi was able to snare me. We won't get lost in there, trust me on this one. Shall we go?"_

"Hold on." Yuusuke said. "Kurama, you got the mint?"

Kurama pulled out a pillowcase full of heavily-scented herbiage.

"Good. Who's got the first-aid kit?"

Kuwabara hauled a small box with a red cross on it out of a backpack.

"Cool. Let's go."

Kurama stuffed the pillowcase into the backpack with the First-Aid kit, shouldered it, and stood up as the Harlequin made ready to transport them to the Makai. Just before his vision faded, he thought he saw a small ginger blur zip behind him, and felt a slight increase of weight in the backpack.

ooooo

They rematerialized on a low bluff on the border, and the first look told them what they needed to know about this place: Inner Makai was a dump. "Yechh!" Genkai said, summing up the whole of the land.

A low whistle attracted their attention. The Harlequin stood a little apart, cape billowing in the sultry breeze. He beckoned, and started walking off toward a group of lumpy hills. They followed him to an arched cave in the base of one hill. It was cool inside, and smelled reptilian. Slithering noises could be heard close by. Then, a massive snake, an anaconda with a huge pair of falcon wings rose up in front of them, blocking the passage. "Halt!" It hissed in a voice like wind in the desert. "Who comessss to the nessst of the Ssserpent Queen?"

The Harlequin stepped forward, bowed politely, and wrote something down on a notepad for the sentry to read. The serpent peered rather shortsightedly at it, forked tongue flickering. "Aaah, yesss." It said in a much less hostile voice. "We know you. The Queen will be pleasssed to sssee you again. Your friendssss are welcome assss well. Come thissss way."

The Serpent folded its wings and slithered down the passage, belly scales raising a dry rasping sound from the stone. The passage they travelled down was sinuous, as though someone had taken a natural limestone cave and then accentuated the curves. They walked through another arched doorway into a vast cavern lit by globes of soft, greenish light, and inside the cavern was the largest legless reptile that any of them had ever seen before.

The Queen of the Flying Serpents was second only to the world-serpent in sheer bulk, and she wound around and around the sandy floor in massive coils that cradled a multitude of huge, mottled eggs. Her eyes were flame-colored and slit-pupilled, and her wings, even folded, were big enough to hide a bus behind. "Greetingssss, Harlequin." She said in a voice that echoed around the chamber. "What are you up to thissss time?"

The Harlequin took out his pen and began writing a note for her, but she interrupted. "What'sss thisss? Writing? Normally by now, you would have filled my halls with the harmonicsss of your ssspeech, 'Quin." She paused for a moment, considering. "Where is your voice, Harlequin?" The Queen asked suspiciously.

The Harlequin looked almost painfully embarrased and wrote down something.

The Serpent Queen began to chuckle, and then to laugh. It sounded like an earthquake and vibrated sand off of the ceiling with the sheer force of it. "My ssstripy friend, even in sssituations like thiss you ssstill are funny." She said when she stopped for breath. "You let Yashi sssteal it? Carelesss, my boy, very carelesss. Now let me guesss. To regain your mellifluousss vocality, you and your buddiesss here need a lift into Yashi's palace."

The Harlequin nodded vigorously.

"It'll cossst you, Harlequin, and not jussst party favorsss this time. The minesss in thisss province are running out. After thisss little essscapade, I would appreciate it if the minersss were to sssuddenly come acrosss a fresh vein of rubies and jet. In a sssuitably humorousss way, of courssse."

The Harlequin pretended to fall over in a dead faint, but gave her a thumbs-up anyway.

"Good boy." The Queen said. "There will be ssseveral of my children waiting for you on the launching pad. You know where that isss, asss I recall. Don't forget your promissse, Harlequin, or I will come after you persssonally."

The Harlequin got up and bowed to the Queen, and turned to go. As the others followed him out, the Queen poked her snout at Hiei and Kurama. "Ssstop mooning around and get on with it, you two." She whispered. "All thisss noble ssself-denial isssn't good for either of you. Moderation isss for monks."

Hiei and Kurama looked at each other, startled. The Queen chuckled. "I may be a reptile, but certain thingsss I can underssstand very well. Get moving."

"Yes, Ma'am!" Kurama said, and they both hurried to catch up with the others.

Kuwabara was having trouble understanding things again. "Look, 'Quin," He said. "If you're this really powerful god, how come you let a big snake boss you around like that?"

The Harlequin smiled tolerantly and started to write. _"I may be considerably older and more powerful than the Queen is, but I didn't spent the last four thousand years founding a very influential race and devouring my enemies whole all by myself. Besides, not only is she letting us bypass some of the worst real estate in existence, but would you smart off to a poisonous snake that large?"_

"You've got a point."

ooooo

The launching platform was in actuality a cliff. Six huge bat-winged vipers waited for them at the edge, tongues flickering impatiently. At Genkai's suggestion, Kurama got out the spearmint. It was to be a long flight, and a smelly one. As Kurama lifted the spearmint out of the backpack, he found out that Norkie had stowed away at the last moment after all. Before he could speak, the little furball raised a finger to where his lips should be. "Shhhh."

Kurama smiled. He was willing to let Norkie take part in this adventure. There was no way to send him back anyway, plus they would probably need all the help they could get. Without saying anything, he handed out bunches of mint to the others. With some difficulty, they climbed astride their serpents and held on tight as they sprang off the cliff. For one heart-stopping moment, it seemed like they would splatter onto the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff, and then six pairs of oversized bat wings opened, sending them into an easy glide. The Harlequin hadn't been kidding when he called the Inner Makai a wasteland. It was a morass of grey and brown, mostly quagmire and rocky places, and what had probably been forests once glowed sickly with phosphorescent fungus. The stink of it all was strong even up here, though the mint helped considerably.

Some time later, a new feature appeared on the landscape. Immense scarlet markings covering miles of territory lay over the low hills and swamps. There was something hauntingly familiar about those markings... "Wow." Yuusuke said. "I didn't know that you could make graffiti that big!"

He was right. Somebody had written and underlined the word "BULLSHIT" on the Inner Makai in great big blocky letters. Kurama stared in amazement at the Harlequin. "Just what kind of map was that?"

"An accurate one!" Kuwabara howled, and then started laughing.

The Harlequin just grinned.

The palace itself was quite imposing, especially the Moat Full of Something, I Don't Know What. Whatever it was, it was attempting to eat the walls. They saw the demons all over the place, and what they were doing down there was more than a little unsettling. "Looks like they're training for an invasion." Genkai remarked. "I think they were due to come in after the Harlequin had taken care of us."

"I don't wanna think about that." Yuusuke said.

ooooo

The Serpents let them off in an old tower, a room that obviously had not been used for several decades. Hiei inspected the lock carefully, then stepped back and shook his head. "It's rusted into a solid lump in there. Nothing short of one of your ningen jackhammers will get it open."

The Harlequin then stepped forward, buried his fingers up to the third knuckle in the door, and then pulled sharply. It turned out that the hinges were rusted through as well. With a groan, the whole door came out of the wall and disintegrated into a pile of dry rot. Hiei glared at the 'Quin for a moment, and then walked off down the hall muttering to himself. They looked at the 'Quin, who shrugged, and then spun around as a commotion erupted from down the hall. Hiei came running back with a horde of unpleasant-looking monsters hot on his heels. The fight was short and ugly, but it got the job done.

They started out again, but this time the Harlequin was in the lead. Unfortunately, he insisted on travelling in an exaggerated crouch, one cloaked elbow half covering his face. They did have to admit it, though; the 'Quin skulked with _style_. The trip to the throne room was fairly uneventful, if you don't count the ambushes they kept springing on the sentries- Kurama swore that he could sense their youki from miles away- and disarming most of the magical booby traps that Yashi had laid for them. They did miss a couple. Genkai sprung a tripwire or something that summoned something awful from another dimension. It blew into the hallway in a fetid windstorm, waving claws and tentacles and eyeballs everywhere, bellowing like a foghorn in serious trouble. It took a quarter-hour to kill, and by that time it had chewed messily on Genkai, Yuusuke, and the Harlequin. The first-aid kit came in very handy here. Disinfectant and large band-aids are very useful in aftermaths like that. The Harlequin didn't bother. He just turned into a can opener and back, wounds gone.

The second trap they missed was a mess of freakish illusions, monsters and memories of the past and the future come to devour their souls. Just one problem. Apparitions don't work very well when mystical itching-powder grenades go off in their shorts. It just ruins their concentration.

All this noise and commotion had, of course, alerted the master of the castle to their presence, so as they neared the throne room, they found themselves neck deep in monsters. Finally, Kuwabara went ballistic. One freakish mutant stepped on his foot, and that was it. Kuwabara went through twenty of them like a baloney-slicer on "high", and then stood in the middle of the hall, extremely peeved, breathing like a bellows, and splashed with everyone else's gore. His teammates applauded him from a safe distance. Even Hiei was impressed. He'd been busy finishing off three of the horrors when it happened, and was slightly disappointed that he hadn't had a chance to play lawnmower with Kuwabara. "You'll get your turn." Kurama said, guessing his thoughts.

By the time they reached the throne room, they'd all had their turns. They paused outside the closed doors of the Great Hall to formulate a fast plan. "Okay." Yuusuke said, slightly out of breath from blowing a troupe of demons right out of a window. "You guys distract Yashi, 'Quin and I do the Ring of Fire when he's not looking, and then 'Quin says his curse. We watch Yashi blow up, we clear out of here, we go home and pass out. Cool?"

"Short and sweet." Kuwabara said. "I like it."

"So, how're we going to get these doors open?" Genkai asked. "Stone doesn't rot, and these don't have a lock."

The Harlequin handed her his pen. It felt strange, and it had a feeling of depth to it that raised the hairs on her arm. She looked sharply at the Harlequin. "I think I've seen this trick before." She said, and started drawing on the doors. She drew her own door- a plain rectangular thing with a simple doorknob. "Imported cartoons do silly things with reality, don't they?" She said, grasping the doorknob and opening the door that she'd drawn.

The Harlequin nodded rather smugly and bowed her through the entrance.

ooooo

Lord Yashi, King of the Inner Makai, was sitting calmly on his throne in the Great Hall as they came in. "I wondered when you'd get here." He said softly.

"Sorry," Yuusuke said, smart-mouthed as ever. "Train was slow today."

"It makes no difference." Yashi said, rising to his feet and coming a few steps toward them. He had prepared himself for this fight, donning armor of steely dragonbone and a long, black-bladed katana that shone like the heart of a black hole. "Death pays no attention to time." He said, and then the floor blew up.

The paving stones cracked and tilted under their feet like rotten ice, and fountains of blue fire erupted from underneath, turning the room from cool to searing in seconds. Yashi hurled himself at them, sword raised, screaming an arcane war cry. Yuusuke and the Harlequin ran off to one side as the others scattered and started to counterattack. Kuwabara engaged briefly in swordplay with the Demon King, but was quickly beaten aside. Kurama saved his life by tripping Yashi up with his Rose Whip. With a howl of fury, Yashi turned on Kurama, showering him with shards of blue flame. Genkai threw up a shield just in time, and the Harlequin riddled Yashi's armor from shoulder to knee with a brace of razor cards. By this time, Kuwabara had hauled himself to his feet and was battering away at their foe again, who also received a Rei Gun blast to the back of the head. Hiei, who had just gotten the hang of all this fire that was being thrown about, channeled it back at its master. In all this assault and battery, Yashi's armor had started to chip. With Hiei's fire-darts, the gauntlet on his left hand cracked open just enough to reveal the yellow spark of a large topaz ring.

"That's it!" Yuusuke hollered.

The Harlequin started juggling fireballs, and Yuusuke added a Rei Gun blast to the mix. The Ring of Fire flared high and bright, lighting up the Hall and sending lightning bolts streaking everywhere. Busy with the others as he was, Yashi could not fail to notice what the Harlequin was doing. He threw up a shield just in time as the Harlequin released the blast at him. It drove him to his knees, but the shield held. They tried two more times, but each time Yashi blocked them.

The Harlequin looked anxiously at Yuusuke, who was beginning to falter. The Harlequin could juggle all the fireballs he wanted from now until doomsday, but Yuusuke's resources were finite. "I've only got enough for one more blast." The teenager panted.

Just then, Kurama discovered that he had a sprig of spearmint hanging on inside his shirt. He pulled it out and worked his plant-magic on it. Spearmint is a ferociously invasive weed anyway, but now...! The floor became a thicket of eight-foot green spears that thrust themselves at Yashi, grating against his armor, finding the chinks in his defenses, and drawing blood where they found them. Yashi shrieked like a disenfranchised banshee and started blasting the mint, filling the air with incense-like fumes. Plants don't feel pain, and Kurama kept them going. Hiei landed on Yashi's shoulders and began to chop furiously at his helmet, intent on removing the Demon-King's head.

Yashi lost his temper right about then. He wrapped his arms about himself and let fly with a blast of force that flash-fried everything in the room and hurled his enemies against the walls, stunning them. Kurama collapsed against the doors, knocked senseless. His backpack, charred and slipping off his shoulders, opened to let something small and furry out. Norkie peered around at the wreckage of the Hall, and his eyes locked on Yashi, who was gasping for breath and trying to figure out just how many years he would spend killing these invaders. Norkie decided to take the matter into his own paws, and became a blur, skittering toward Yashi over the cracked stones, and mint fragments toward his foe. In a flash, he scrambled up Yashi's front and grabbed hold of his eyebrows, fixing the startled demon with a beady-eyed triple glare. Yashi was then privileged to find out just what was under all that ginger fluff; it was teeth. Lots and lots of small, sharp teeth. Norkie gave him a fiendish grin and fastened every single fang he had firmly onto Yashi's nose.

Yashi howled in surprise and pain, giving the Harlequin the opening that he needed. He sprang to his feet and began juggling flame again as the Demon King struggled to get a ferociously growling Norkie off of his face. Yuusuke braced himself and gave the last of his spiritual energy to the Harlequin's blazing wheel as Norkie clawed at Yashi's eyes. The Harlequin leveled and fired the spitting beam just as Yashi managed to yank the small strange furry thing off of his nose and hurl it across the room. The beam splashed against his unguarded hand, vaporizing the ring and most of the hand as well. The Demon King shrieked again in agony, clutching his maimed hand, and gaped in terror at the Harlequin, who had begun to laugh out loud for the first time in years.

It was not a nice laugh. There were harmonics in it that chilled the blood; the mad, screaming laughter of the terminally demented, evil giggles of imps, the wicked glee of mischievous children, ugly rending sounds, and behind the whole blend of chilling noises, someone was playing "Night on Bald Mountain". The laughter bounced off the walls and echoed around the room, rising to a crescendo that caused the foundations to crack. The Harlequin stood up straight and expanded to more than twice his height so that he towered over his former master, who cringed away. "You were right, Yashi." The Harlequin said in a voice that made the floor shake. "Death pays no attention to time."

He then raised his face to the heavens and started to chant in a ancient, hideous language that turned the air unpleasant colors and made the walls crack. "No!" wailed Yashi as the murky air congealed and sputtered above him. "No!"

The roiling murk opened and a block of Spam that must have weighed three tons fell through and landed on him. "Spam?!" Hiei said. "Mere lunch meat won't stop him."

"I know." The Harlequin said calmly as the mass of putrid pink began to smolder. "I'm very angry with him, so I'm taking my time."

The Spam exploded, and Yashi, maddened to the point of frothing at the mouth, rushed them, howling like a rabid dog. A pit opened up under his feet and he dropped away, landing in something with a splash. "The moat, of course, runs through the basement of the castle itself." The Harlequin continued, returning to his normal size. "There is a monster in the moat, a creature that one of his predecessors created during a hangover. There's only one of it, and it's not happy about that."

"So I see." Genkai said, watching the bottom of the pit with much interest.

"Urgh." Kurama said, sneaking a peek.

"Wow." Yuusuke remarked, following suit.

"Yukk." Kuwabara added.

"Feh." Norkie said.

"Back!" Hiei shouted, grabbing Kurama by the shirt and hauling.

There was an explosive thump from below, and a column of greasy flame boiled upward as the others scrambled away from the opening. A rather slimy Yashi rose from the depths like a bad lunch and snarled at them. "You haven't won yet, clown!" He shrieked. "You may kill me in the end, but you will join me in Hell!"

He raised his arms and began to speak in the same awful language that the Harlequin had used, but stopped short, a shocked look on his face. "Too late, worms-for-brains." The Harlequin said as Yashi's skin began to darken and crinkle alarmingly.

An inferno began to show itself under the Demon King's armor, blazing out of his eyes and mouth in a sooty flare. The ground began to tremble and grow hot. Something deep in the earth shattered with a noise that was heard across the three worlds and a massive earthquake struck right under them. Once again the floor erupted, but not with the weird blue of sorcerous flame; this was the thick, red-black, sulphurous glare of an old volcano. The air began to reek of brimstone as Yashi became a pillar of fire that blasted the ceiling away. The others crowded around the Harlequin instinctively for protection as he produced a red-and black umbrella and opened it above them. The rumbling under their feet grew intense, even urgent, and finally the whole foundation lifted away in an explosion that shattered the sound barrier and lifted the castle into orbit in chunks. Our heroes rode out the storm in a bubble of force that protected them from the fury outside. Light as a feather, they floated up and away from the volcano, which was pouring seas of magma all over the Inner Makai. "Continental volcanoes are something of a rarity, but they are extremely powerful." The Harlequin said in a voice that reminded Yuusuke of his Geology teacher. "The stresses are slow, but immense. The original Demon King wished to harness this power, so he sat the throne right over the mouth of the sleeping fire-giant and tied the Kingship into it with a certain forbidden spell that transfers the power into the ruler, thus keeping the volcano quiescent. As you can see, my children, having power is one thing, but controlling it is another. The secret of controlling the volcano died with its originator, and, frankly, if Yashi had truly known what he was sitting on, he might have been able to stop me. As it was, he is now a whiff of carbonized hydrogen. As he stank before, he is a stink now."

"You mean, you set off the volcano right under him?" Yuusuke asked, stunned.

"No, I set him off. Old worms-for-brains got mad enough to try a counter-curse, and for that he needed the strength of the volcano behind him. Quiz time, children! What happens when you take the lid off of ten thousand years worth of volcanic pressure?"

"Wow." Hiei said, eyes glowing, smiling slightly.

"Will the volcano swamp all the Makai?" Kurama asked worriedly. "There are some places there that mean a lot to me."

"Nope, just the inner part. It'll stop a mile from the border. In a few years, the whole place will be green again. Just the thing for a nice garden, volcanic ash is."

"Speaking of gardens," Kurama said, glaring at the Harlequin. "Mom was furious about what you did to it."

"I'm sorry about that. I can fix it, if you like."

Kurama considered the offer, and then wondered just what a garden tended by the God of Chaotic Silly would be like. "Never mind, I'll take care of it." Kurama said.

"Suit yourself."

Kuwabara yawned and stretched, his back making alarming crunching noises. "Heck with gardens." He muttered. "I could do with a bath and something to eat."

"Hear, hear." Genkai seconded, brushing charred Spam bits off her shirt.

"That, at least, I can arrange." The Harlequin said, and transported them... elsewhere.

ooooo

It was definitely an island, and a tropical one at that. The sunset was that special orange-magenta mix that you only get near the equator, and seagulls soared easily in the salt-sea breeze. The Yu Yu Hakusho had abandoned all dignity and had headed for the beach on arrival. Even Hiei had been persuaded to stay in the warm sea water after Kurama had thrown him back in only twice. He consoled himself by sneaking up on Kurama and splashing him like crazy every chance he got.

By the time they were clean, they all were very hungry, so the 'Quin treated them to a regional delicacy: Shark. He swam out and wrestled it to shore just for them. Roasted on the beach and served with fruit from the island, it wasn't half-bad. Then, after a quick game of "Hunt the Coconut", they wandered off and passed out wherever the ground wasn't too lumpy. It was probably notable that Kurama and Hiei wandered off together, but the others were too tired to notice.

In the morning, the Harlequin transported them back to their home turf, said goodbye, and left to keep his promise to the Serpent queen. On his way out, though, he made a promise of his own to them. "I owe you guys for your help in this." He said, calliope music dancing around behind his voice. "If you guys ever need the aid of someone who puts his brain on backwards every morning, don't hesitate to call me."

Yuusuke, Kurama, Hiei, Kuwabara, and Genkai settled back into their daily routines with sighs of deep relief. It wasn't until a few days later when the side effects of their jaunt into the Unreal began to manifest themselves. "It's weird. Kurama said when they all met in the park for a chat. "One of my rosebushes has been blooming blue, and petunias simply will not grow in my garden anymore."

"I'll say." Kuwabara said. "One of the gangs in the Manga district have started doing clown worship. They've been spray-painting clown faces all over that old basketball court."

"My history teacher's developed a sense of humor." Yuusuke said.

The others paused to consider that. They had all met Mr. Takaeda at a school bake sale once; he had been the most boring, stuffy, and monotonous man in existence. Not any more, apparently.

"One of my candles burns with a red and black flame." Genkai said. "Anything to add, Hiei?"

Hiei glared at her. "No."

"Sorry."

"He does leave his mark, doesn't he?" Yuusuke said. "I don't think we'll be able to forget him in a hurry."

"No matter how much we might want to." Genkai said with a smile. "Well, I have to go. The wards around the temple need to be recharged. See ya."

"Bye." The others said as she walked off.

"Hey, fellas," Kuwabara said, remembering something. "There's that new video game at the Arcade; I think they just got it set up. Wanna go check it out?"

"Sure!" Yuusuke said, brightening up. "Care to come, you two?" He asked Hiei and Kurama.

"Okay." Kurama said. Hiei just shrugged.

As Kuwabara and Yuusuke trotted eagerly off, a messenger came up to Kurama and Hiei. "Are you Minamino Shuuichi?" He asked.

"That's me." Kurama said.

"Message for you, sir." The messenger handed a small roll of paper to Kurama, received a tip, and left.

"Now, who would have sent this?" Kurama murmured as he unrolled the paper and read it. "Eeep!" He said.

"What's it say?" Hiei asked, seeing the stricken expression on Kurama's face.

Rather shakily, Kurama read the letter aloud.

 ** _Dear Kurama and Hiei,_**

 ** _Good work, you two, and keep it up! I told you that you would be happier together than apart. Write to me when the children are born; since one of you is a Koorime, I will expect you to have at least two. Don't disappoint me, kids. Call me if you need a babysitter._**

 ** _All the best,_**

 ** _Lillias, Queen of the Flying Serpents_**

"Eeep!" Hiei said, with feeling.

"Hey!" Yuusuke shouted from the edge of the park. "You guys coming or what?"

Kurama gave Hiei a meaningful look, stuffed the Queen's message in a pocket, and both he and Hiei ran to catch up.

ooooo

The Arcade's new game was a street-fighter type- a top of the line thing with snazzy graphics and impressive attacks. Kuwabara had to bully several people before he and the others could get a turn. Everything went fine up until the character select mode, when they spotted something among the ranks. One of the characters was tall, stripey, clownish, and agile, with large topaz eyes and a permanent smile. They stared at it for a long moment in stunned amazement. " _HOWL!_ " Hiei cried, drawing his sword and attacking the game with it. He managed to carve a rather attractive design in it before the others were able to pull him away and calm him down with a bottle of beer. After that, he was too mellow to complain all that much. That didn't stop him from spending a half-hour on the machine kicking the Harlequin's butt with his ninja, however.


End file.
